Here’s why I think Samsung’s just-announced Galaxy S III is a disappointment, and also a lead to a potentially game-changing move by Samsung, for Microsoft.

Features / OS Additions

Samsung has multitude of S-branded additions to its device, but most of them do not truly add to the experience, some times bordering on gimmick.

Of course, the newer device will always be better than its predecessor, but that’s not the point.

Samsung thus has only a few notable features, like the Smart Stay eye tracking feature which keeps the phone awake when it sees you’re reading the screen. Other features are merely simple additions to existing features like Android Beam, and they’re even hard to sell.

In what scenario do you see yourself touching someone else’s phone to share media. You will probably be prompted to go see a Facebook timeline for a link instead.

To make things even less of a comparison factor to other competitors, Android’s open platform means a clone of the Smart Stay eye-tracking feature will undoubtedly come out for every other device with a front-facing camera out there. It’s not built in, but it won’t change your life either.

Camera

And then there’s the camera. While Apple has released a stellar camera on the 4S, others have failed to bring out truly competing optics. Samsung was thus poised to take over the champion position with the S III, but instead came out with a status quo improvement that’s mostly software-based.

If you’re looking for the best camera in a superphone, you’ll still be heading to Apple.

Design

Let’s face it, the S III looks like it just came out of the rounded corner and embossed craze back when it became possible to implement fancy graphics in GUIs; you know, Windows XP era.

It’s telling when you put the S III and the One X side-by-side. The One X simply looks gorgeous in comparison, and in stores, this is gonna show, not even counting the cheap plastic materials and the lack of a unibody.

There’s a problem when your flagship device looks like a budget phone.

Hardware

And then comes the hardware. It’s not bad, but it’s not impressive either. With only 1 GB of RAM, a slightly beefed up version of the S II’s GPU, a quad core CPU based on a previous generation ARM A9 architecture and a PenTile AMOLED display to top it all, the S III leaves itself wide open to competition.

There’s no reason, except for very little improvement in benchmarks, to go with the S III solely on specs versus the competitors.

Even the now frail LG is including twice the RAM in its next gen offering; 2 GB. Last year, the opposite was true. LG’s Optimus 2X came out with only 512 MB of RAM, half the S II’s, and look at how that turned out.

But perhaps more strangely, Samsung had already announced the its new ARM A15 based Exynos 5 chip, going instead with the 4 for the S III, giving credence to the rumors that Samsung may be keeping its best show for another platform, Windows Phone 8.

Whatever it is, it’s clear to me that the S III is not the superphone we were expecting. It’s almost unthinkable that such an important device be so underwhelming. Something must be up.

Is Hardware Really Important

In the end though, the hardware capabilities of a device do not count as much as they used to. There are innovations to be had elsewhere, but the S III fails to deliver here too.

Undoubtedly, if you like the design, it’s a great improvement over its predecessor, and a great choice for those who still own a first-generation Galaxy S and are looking to upgrade while staying with Samsung.

But for an avid smartphone enthusiast, I’d stay put and wait for other devices. The Exynos 5 is bound to be used in a smartphone in 2012, and competitors may have better offerings down the line.

Nope. I would actually rather use Android than anything else. I’m quite the fan of open systems and wrote this from the perspective of a Galaxy S1 owner, not an Apple fan.

The recent news that the Canadian S3’s gonna have 2 GB of RAM alleviates much of my pessimism, but I still think Samsung’s got something better for 2012, , like an LTE Exynox 5 chip in a Note 2 or something.

For a second i though i would have read useful information, however was intellectually scared by personal opinion, bad point of view, and definitly a perfered apple handler.
Clearly thinking hardware wouldnt be a factor was the first mistake. The camera i can agree, i was expecting something a little better but 1080p video capture.. meh.. get a camera. Its a phone that sets standards for phones for crying out loud. Quad core processing for international phone. Its our data network technology that messed that up. Thats why we recieved the snap4. Which again clearly multitasks hands down the X, iphone is to slow for competition.
No more ranting on bad reviews from individuals that need to clesrly check out better sources, and this comes from a person whom respects techology whom ever is the creator as well as a person whom switched from the fragile iphone.

The SGS3 varies from 1GB to 2GB of RAM, to a quad core Exynos 4 series chip (same tech as SGS2, just more powerful, but not more advanced), to a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 to LTE chips for various carriers.

There are currently four known models, of which there are carrier-specific variants. For instance, the international model comes with 1GB of RAM and no LTE chip, but in South Korea the same model has 2GB of RAM and an LTE chip.